Flooded Hospitals and Washed Away Beaches: What Milton May Unleash on Tampa

As Hurricane Milton churns eastward in the Gulf of Mexico, so too do the stomachs of Tampa Bay’s three million residents.

That’s because Milton, again a Category 5 storm as of Tuesday evening, is on a crash course with Florida’s seldom-struck west coast that stands to see Tampa Bay’s lone trauma center inundated and unable to accept patients, its famous white-sand beaches washed away, and hundreds of its bridges rendered impassable.

At least, that’s what local officials in the region warned two decades ago in a worst-case-scenario simulation of a storm that’d cripple Tampa and nearby coastal communities—a hypothetical hurricane that bears chilling similarities to Milton, down to their final paths and month of arrival.

Read more at The Daily Beast.